Various methods for driving a wheel carried by an aircraft undercarriage have been proposed. In particular, it has been proposed to drive the wheel by means of a drive actuator comprising an output pinion that meshes with a drive ring secured to the wheel. To allow free rotation of the wheel, a clutch device is provided between the drive motor and the output pinion. However, the output pinion remains permanently meshed with the drive ring, which is not favourable from the point of view of safety.
It has also been proposed to use a rotational drive actuator, the output shaft of which carries a roller cooperating with a drive track secured to the wheel. However, this arrangement suffers from various drawbacks. In particular, for reasons of safety, it is necessary to be able to disconnect the roller from the drive track of the wheel, which makes it necessary to provide a movable actuator. This arrangement is particularly difficult to implement. Furthermore, passing the whole of the drive torque through a single roller proves to be difficult.